Underworld
by InorganicAngel
Summary: During an excursion into old catacombs,Harry,Draco and a Slytherin youth get lost in undiscovered parts of it.Without a way back they venture deeper into the labyrinth of corridors and halls.During their journey they discover a city under the earth,to whi


Title: "Underworld"  
  
Author: Danielle  
  
Rating: PG-13 at the moment  
  
Pairing: H/D primary  
  
Status: unfinished, 1/20  
  
Story type: Fantasy/Mystery/Adventure  
  
Warnings: just the weirdness of the author....  
  
Archive: ... I would probably kiss your feet if you want to put "this" somewhere  
  
Disclaimers: own nothing...characters belong to JKR, aside from a few unimportant ones...  
  
Reviews: Pretty please? I am a review bitch, without them I don't work...  
  
Authors Notes: Inspired by a book I read 5 years ago and stumbled upon today as I packed my things to move. The story itself is set during the sixth and seventh year in Hogwarts.  
  
Thanks to Suki for taking the time to beta this...  
  
Summary (warning: spoilers for the next 5 chapters): During an excursion into the old catacombs, Harry, Draco and another Slytherin youth get lost in the old and undiscovered parts of it, without a way back they venture deeper into the labyrinth of dark corridors and halls of stone, hunted by strange creatures. During their flight they discover a city, hidden within the labyrinth and protected by a unknown spell, to which Draco seems to have a strange connection...  
  
  
  
Thinking back to it he wasn't so sure anymore, if it had really been a good idea. Well, it seemed like one at that time, and he had agreed with to it with as much enthusiasm as the rest of his class. Who wouldn't? It was seldom that the school allowed a excursion, and since the return of Voldemort they had become even more rare. The only setback at that time seemed that only a few chosen of the sixth and seventh years would be allowed on it for various reasons, two of them being the argument that it could be expected from them that they would behave and that there was still the chance of an unexpected attack by the Dark Lord or his minions and so every one of them should be able to defend his or her life, and also those of the other students.  
  
This did not trouble Harry though, he had been sure he and his friends would be in this small selected group.  
  
He was only partly right.  
  
Herminone and he had been granted allowance to join the excursion, whilst Ron had to stay behind. The next few days had been filled with his friend's whining and bitching, that he had to stay behind, facing Snape alone in Double Potions, whilst they were out having fun, which was followed by a lecture of Hermione that this wasn't a entertainment trip, but a school excursion, which purpose it was to study the relics of old magical cultures and test their knowledge on the field.  
  
That was the first time he had doubted it had really been such a good idea to agree to this. The prospect of spending a day in suffocating old stone dungeons and catacombs, filled with the dust of centuries and digging around for stones that might hold traces of a culture that wasn't around anymore anyway, didn't sound all that good.  
  
Unfortunately the knowledge that the excursion would lead them to a old cathedral and into the catacombs beneath it had passed down a bit too late to him and there was no way he could back out of it now.  
  
But the catastrophe wasn't that the trip would force him to spend his day in the natural surroundings of everything Slytherin, but also in their company. He still had the urge to kick his redhaired friend for his laughter, as Ron had accompanied him and Hermione down into the entrance hall and he had to discover that the Proffessors accompanying them were none different but Bings and Snape. To make it even worse, among the small groups of students were quite a few Slytherins, including none other than Draco Malfoy.  
  
The idea of turning and running for his life and sanity became suddenly rather predominant, but since this wouldn't exactly fit his image of the brave Gryffindor hero, and the fact that Malfoy would most likely tease him for the rest of his miserable life if he bugged out now, Harry took his place next to Hermione, answering the blondhaired boy's sneer with a look of disdain and mentally readied himself for a long and torturous day.  
  
The trip on their brooms to their destination, a small village in the middle of nowhere, went fairly well, no one, not even the Slytherins dared to pull any pranks while it lasted. None of the students believed that Snape wouldn't make his threat true that, if he caught any of them endangering the others whilst flying, he would make sure that the one responsible would be expelled from school and not be accept on any other ever again.  
  
By now they had spent half an hour already listening to Binns droning on and on about the history of the catacombs they had entered a while ago, and the question Harry has asked himself hundreds of times by now was, how anyone could manage to present such interesting facts and stories so utterly boring. Up to now he had not found the answer to it.  
  
With a sigh he looked at the others around him, the dim and flickering light of the lanterns they had brought down with them throwing dancing shadows over their faces. Next to him Hermione was furiously taking notes, filling paper after paper with neat writing, whilst the others looked as if they were short of falling asleep.  
  
"...the Romans called the vaults they used to bury their deaths in Ad Catacumbas and since that time all burial places like this have been called catacombs..."  
  
"How exciting...", he muttered and those that had heard him nodded their heads, some of them even pulling a face.  
  
It wasn't as if the history and stories of this catacombs weren't interesting, but Harry was fairly sure that Binns would be able to bore his listeners to death, even if he announced that aliens had landed in front of Hogwarts.  
  
"...up to the eighteenth century, this place was used as the cemetery for kings, priests and even a few famous wizards. But before that, to be exactly in the Medieval Ages, it was used as burial place for those that died of the Black Death...", Binns' sleeping pill voice droned on and his thoughts once again started to drift off… Quidditch, schoolwork, brooms, girls, boys, even if he did not dare venturing deeper into that subject, and whatever came to mind.  
  
That he caught the slight movement in the corner of his eye was a coincidence, two shadows slipping into one of the corridors that led away from the one they were in, and ghost had told them were off limits.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he looked hastily if Snape or Binns looked in his direction, before separating himself from the small group of students and stepping into the shadow of the small corridor. It took a while before his eyes had adjusted to the darkness that reigned here, seeing the blurry outlines of stairs a few feet away from. He went on, carefully taking one step after the other as he went deeper into the darkness, the voice of Binns in the background slowly fading away and for a few moments the only sound he could hear was his own breathing and rapidly beating heart. For a few moment he thought he had been wrong, that the shadows had been nothing more than that, and that the movement had been nothing more than a illusion thrown against the walls by the flicker of the flames, but then he heard a voice, echoing from the stone walls enclosing him, and a shiver ran down his back. He had not understood what had been said, but the echo had been broken, twisted what might have been spoken and Harry had been reminded of the Forbidden Forest, in which the wind seemed to whisper through the leaves of the trees, to moan and whisper secrets that no one understood. The green eyed boy shook his head, a small nervous smile ghosting over his lips and he mentally chided himself for such thoughts, for being afraid of an echo. Next he would jump at his own shadow.  
  
None the less he drew his wand .  
  
The steps ended in another corridor, which seemed to lead to a chamber or hall of some sort, from where the voice and a faint shimmer of bluish light came from. Silently he walked closer, by now he could understand what was being spoken by the voice, that sounded slightly familiar now that he could understand it.  
  
"...it is possible that there are even more chambers than those discovered by now. A research team of muggles had found ten new chambers with their devices within only one day. One thing is sure though, these halls are much older than everyone has thought so far, maybe they even reach back to the Roman times. But if you ask me they date even back to an earlier time."  
  
"And to build something like this, they surely must have used magic."  
  
That he would have known everywhere, cold and sharp.  
  
Malfoy.  
  
What was the git doing down here?  
  
Carefully Harry snuck nearer to the end of the corridor, keeping to the shadows so that the two occupants would not see him, and tried to get a glimpse of them.  
  
What he had first thought was another chamber or room in the seemingly endless labyrinth of the catacombs, and of which he had seen quite a few today already, proved to be something entirely different, and for a moment he forgot about his rival and the nameless other and simple gazed in awe. Seemingly melted and carved into the stone was an entire cathedral, easily 20 feet high and held by black arcs that were adorned with various small statues and gargoyles, whose sightless eyes stared down at the altar in the middle of the hall, surrounded by seats that had seemingly grown out of the ground. And there also stood Malfoy and a short, blackhaired boy, which he now recognised as the headboy of Slytherin, Aether... something or the other. The glow, that had painted the room in a sickly blue light emitted from the boys folded hands, throwing the faces of the two Slytherins in shadows and letting them appear strangely two dimensional.  
  
What the fuck were they doing here? Surely they did not risk the wrath of Snape just to chat about the age of some tomb. Frowning he leaned forward to get a better look at their surroundings, trying to determine if there was anything that could be of interest for the other two boys aside from the really impressing collection of dust that had gathered here.  
  
But that slight movement seemed to have come to the attention of the boys. Malfoy whipped around, normally grey eyes a fiery blue in the magical light, their gaze wandering over the shadows in which he hid, whilst the others boy hand closed around something hidden in his pockets. Harry held his breath, pressing himself against the wall and silently wished that he would simple meld into the shadows. Being caught by two Slytherins, and one of them Malfoy at that, alone, in a chamber quite far away from any help and with more than one perfect possibility to dispose of his body in this labyrinth, was NOT a good idea.  
  
No such luck.  
  
The blond wizard's eyes fixed on Harry with an accuracy as if he stood there in plain view, narrowing to barely slits and thin lips pulled up in a sneer that let his face seem even more angular.  
  
"Potter."  
  
He spat the word as if it was something foul, distaste clearly evident, already raising his wand to throw a spell at the other boy.  
  
It had become a regular occurrence between the two, where once it had been only hateful and humiliating words, had become a full out war between the Golden Boy of Gryffindor and the Bouncing Ferret of Slytherin, which were fought with curses and all kinds of spell, everything alright as long as it was humiliating and did not result in any bodily harm...well, no severe at least. No one could exactly tell which were the reasons for the sudden change in the choice of "weapons", some guessed it had to do with the war, others were sure that Malfoy had finally managed to wear Potter's patience thin and a particular nasty comment had lead to this, others joked that they had finally run out of insults for each other, while a few whispering and giggling voices said it was a lovers' tiff. Those annoying girly voices were quickly silenced by both parties involved.  
  
And, here they were again, Malfoy trying to hex Potter, while he already readied the counterspell. Which never happened anyway....  
  
Harry wasn't sure how exactly the following occurred afterwards, the only thing he remembered exactly anymore was the blackhaired boy screaming that they should put down their wands, before the earth started to shake under their feet, a sound, like nails dragging over a blackboard penetrating his ears, deafening him to his own scream of surprise and those of the other two boys as dust, stones and earth rained down on them. He jumped forward into the hall as he felt the ground beneath his feet crumbling, stumbling towards them, but did not manage to come far as the stone broke away under his feet and he fell. A half, but to him seemingly endless minute he fell, before he hit the ground, or at least something that broke his downwards journey, that gave away slightly as he hit it, before razor sharp splinters dug into his back and his head hit something hard that splintered beneath him. A moment he fought the urge to pass out, blackness and colourful stars dancing at the edge of his vision, which surprisingly wasn't all that hard. For a few seconds he simple lay there, listening to his rapidly beating heart, before he carefully moved his limbs. It was even possible and didn't hurt that bad, aside from a few bruises and cuts he seemed to be alright. A few feet left to him he suddenly heard Malfoy cursing loudly, followed by frantic coughing, interrupted only for more colourful choice words, specially directed at faith and Harry. It seemed the blond boy had survived the fall without any severe injury, if any at all. Wounded people that were really hurt did not tend to be so creative with their words.  
  
The other Slytherin seemed to be alright too, for his voice sharply cut off the blonds endless string of cursing.  
  
"Shut up, Malfoy! Make yourself useful and search for the stone. Potter? Are you alive?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Pity."  
  
He wasn't so sure who of the two had uttered that last word, but it did not really make a difference anyway, since most likely they both agreed on it.  
  
Slowly he opened his eyes, waiting a moment for his eyes to adjust to the utter blackness around him, without much luck. Carefully he tried to sit up but refrained from it, freezing in his movement as the ground he sat on started to shake slightly and something fell and vanished into the darkness with a clattering sound and raising a cloud of dust that made it hard to breathe.  
  
"Are you alright?"  
  
It was Aether's voice that broke through the darkness, nearer now and for a moment Harry believed he could make out the shape of the boy, kneeling just a few feet in front of him, but as he blinked the outlines were gone again.  
  
"Ye..."  
  
His answer was interrupted by Malfoy's slightly hoarse voice, who seemed to be shaking.  
  
"I have got it."  
  
"Good. Just say Ignis to light it."  
  
"Ee… I... do I have to? I think, it would be better, if... if you don't see this."  
  
"Just light the fucking stone, Malfoy."  
  
The older boys voice was silky and slow, as if speaking to a small frightened child, and Harry silently wondered, what had shaken Malfoy so much that he started to stutter...and also how he was able to see anything in this darkness.  
  
"Ignis."  
  
In the next instance blue light flared up, blinding him for a moment and he raised his hand in front of his eyes to shield them from the sudden brightness. Blinking owlishly he looked around and wishing the next moment Aether had listened to Malfoy only for once. They sat on a giant mountain, or at least so it seemed to him, of human skulls and bones. Sightless holes staring at him, sharp splinters of bleached bones digging into his legs, the air filled with the fine and flour-like dust into which most of the bone-hill had turned. He closed his eyes again, silently counting to ten, willing himself not to panic. There was a way out of this, surely, and it wasn't like this was the first time he came face to face with a skull, the only difference was that here where a few thousands.  
  
Nothing great.  
  
"You two brain-dead, Immature, useless, idiotic Bastards! Did they Teach You Nothing in those Fucking Six years?! Have you Never Listened to Anything your teachers told you? This is a Fucking Basalt building!! You Can't use magic here, you Stupid Arseholes!"  
  
If Harry wasn't so torn between being frightened because of his surrounding and being angry at the other boy for insulting him, he would have envied him for his ability to speak so that you exactly knew where he placed the capital letters. He wanted to retort something witty, to prove that he was everything but childish and that the black haired boy carried just as much vault as they, but what came forth wasn't exactly what he had aimed for.  
  
"It was Malfoy's fault."  
  
Very mature indeed.  
  
"What?!"  
  
The other youth's voice still sounded hoarse, and another round of coughing interrupted his outburst, but did not diminish the glare he send Harry's way.  
  
"It was yours! You were the one sneaking up on us!"  
  
"You two were the ones to sneak off to Merlin knows where!"  
  
"You did not have to follow!"  
  
"I...!"  
  
"Would the two of you please shut up. We have other problems now, than your pitiful rivalry. For example how we get out of this rat hole, since using magic isn't exactly an option."  
  
The two sixth years fell silent all at once, Harry staring up against the ceiling, scanning it for the hole they had fallen in through, while Malfoy looked sullenly into the blue light of the stone in his hands.  
  
Actually, the youth was right, the green eyed boy thought, it was pitiful that they couldn't stop fighting even if their life may depended on the two of them working together.  
  
The ceiling arched approximately fifteen feet above them, a long crack running through it from which still earth and small stones fell down, around them nothing more than solid stone walls and bones. If there was any way out but the crack above them it was buried under tons of skeletons and dust. So the only way out was the one they came in through, which was out of their reach, if they could not use magic.  
  
This did not look good at all  
  
"How lovely. How long do you think it will take them to find us down here?"  
  
He could see Aether shrugging slightly, his face set into a mask of none caring.  
  
"Two, maybe three hours. I expect that they have left the catacombs as the quake started, as soon as Bings has stopped being flustered and they have calmed down the hysterical Hufflepuffs, I am sure they will notice our absence and start to search for us. With a bit of luck they will discover us down here."  
  
Silence settled heavy over the small group after those words. No one of them dared to bring up what had been left unspoken by the older boy.  
  
If they discover us.  
  
They had passed countless other corridors that lead away from the main one, and there were probably thousands of chambers just like this. The chance was slim that they would be discovered anytime soon, if ever.  
  
And there was also the chance that the small earthquake had destroyed the steps that lead down here, or that the corridor that led to the cathedral had been buried under the debris.  
  
Draco swallowed heavily at his thoughts, none of them exactly helping to calm him down. He was nervous, afraid even, more than he would allow to admit to himself. It wasn't so much the darkness, or the skeletons that frightened him, or the prospect of slowly starving down here, together with no one different than bloody Potter, even if it was a frightening scenario when he thought about it. But something different, something that he couldn't place his finger on. But it was there, creeping up on them, the shadows moving around them, just at the edge of the dancing blue light that he held in his hands. He wasn't so sure if the movement he saw in the eyeholes of the skulls were only his imagination or not. A cold shiver ran over his back, and his gazed darted between the two black haired boys that shared his predicament. Potter looked nervous, fiddling with the hem of his dusty robe, raising his head every so often to look around or gaze upwards to the hole in the ceiling. He wondered if his rival felt it too, the danger creeping up on them.  
  
Probably.  
  
Deorn seemed calm, but then again he wouldn't have expected anything different from their headboy, he couldn't remember a time were he had seen anything different than bored indifference or a pleasant smile on the face of the youth, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was anticipation burning in those poison green eyes.  
  
Did he know something?  
  
His fingers closes tighter over the gem in his hand, the cool blue light seeping out between his fist, letting it glow in a pale, sickly light, nearly transparent.  
  
A small tremor ran through the bones beneath him, somewhere a few of them came loose and clattered down into the darkness, a small cloud of white dust filling the air, making it momentarily hard to breath.  
  
"Could the two of you please sit still? The last thing that I want is to be buried beneath tons of bone meal and splinters, just because you couldn't sit still for a few hours."  
  
"I didn't move", Potter snapped back, eyes glaring at the other, his dislike of the other black haired youth obvious. For a moment the two glared at each other, tension clearly evident, not paying attention to him, while he had gone paler, his hands shaking slightly again. It was his voice that broke the staring match between them.  
  
"I didn't move either."  
  
Two pairs of green eyes were suddenly trained on him, the softer ones widening slightly, a sliver of fear showing for just a second before it was gone again, while the others stayed hard like stones.  
  
"Then it was probably a rat or something. Damnit, Malfoy, stop acting like a little kid that is afraid of the dark. Doesn't fit you at all."  
  
Whatever he had wanted to retort died on his tongue as another tremor wracked through the bones, becoming stronger with every passing second.  
  
The ground gave way beneath his feet.  
  
Suddenly dust filled his mouth, making it nearly impossible to breath, splinters duck into his back, stomach, face and limbs. He tried to fight the pull that dragged him downwards, but something hard hit the back of his head and his vision turned blurry for a few moments. He could hear the screams of Potter and Deorn, and his own mixing with them as he caught a glimpse of ... something lurking down in the shadows of the newly formed hole they were falling through. A face, strangely deformed, full of scars and festering sores, enormous dark eyes without irises, shot through with bloody veins, a great, flat nose and teeth which would turn a shark green with envy. In a second a thousand of possibilities chased through his head how this fall could end, from something simple like breaking his neck and getting stabbed by god knows how many sharp bone splinters, to ending between the teeth of this beast.  
  
Suddenly the pull was gone and what followed was a long, fast fall downwards that did not end so harmless like the one into the bone chamber before. Somehow he managed by instinct to shield his head and face with his arms, as he hit the ground hard enough that he had the feeling that all air was pressed out of his lungs and every bone broken, which was good, then only a moment later a waterfall of skulls and bones rained down on him. That he lived through it without major injuries was, once again, pure luck. A few of the stones that had been loosened from the ceiling and fell down around him were easily big enough to kill him instantly.  
  
It took a while until he dared to open his eyes again and remove his hands from his face.  
  
The wonder from earlier had repeated itself. He was still alive and relative unharmed, aside from a few bruises and cuts on his back that burned terrible. Beside him he could hear Potter cursing in between painful moans and a bit future away Deorn had just started to yell and damn them, faith, catacombs, god and the world in general. Which proved they all were still alive.  
  
Even the stone still cast its bluish light.  
  
Those were the good news.  
  
The bad were that this time they had fallen easily 30 feet, once again it seemed like a miracle to him that not every bone in his body was broken and his brain splattered over the stone, and was definitely much bigger and older than the pest hole they had just fallen through. The air was humid and old, and in the ghostly light of the stone dust encrusted spider webs, big like sails, moved gently in the breeze that came from above.  
  
Draco was normally not afraid of spiders, there were enough in the dungeons of Hogwarts, but he had no need to stay here and discover if those insects were as big as their webs, and what other creatures might lurk here.  
  
Like rats.  
  
Or ghouls, he thought as the ugly deformed face came to his mind again. His thoughts halted there, startled. How did he know that this creature was a ghoul? He couldn't remember ever coming face to face with something like that.  
  
"Are you still alive, Malfoy?"  
  
It was Potter's voice that chased his thoughts away, whatever his mind had tried to grasp a hold of flitted of as if it was never there to begin with.  
  
He grumbled something as he sat up carefully, moving away from the hole in the ceiling on hands and feet, there were still a few bones falling down and sometimes even stones and he was not very keen on getting killed by a falling rock at the last moment, before he sacked down again on his sore bottom.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"We must have had a whole army of guardian angels on our side to survive this."  
  
Or all demons against us, he thought sourly. Deorn sounded definitely to optimistic and cheerful for his taste, just like a fucking Gryffindor out on an adventure. He heard him moving around in the darkness somewhere, and a few moments later the light grew brighter and moved, throwing moving shadows onto the walls around them.  
  
"Do you have any idea where we are?"  
  
"Not really, Potter. But...", the older youth paused for a moment and let the light of the stone pass over their surroundings, blinding him momentarily as it passed over him.  
  
"This could actually be what I have hope for all along."  
  
"Which is?", he could feel annoyance gnawing at his nerves, he was in no mood for the cryptic answers.  
  
"The old part of the catacombs! Don't you remember? I told you of them before, that there is the theory that the catacombs are much larger than thought and that part of them are most likely build by wizards. It seems this is the proof for it. Something better than our little accident couldn't possibly happen!"  
  
Draco had a different opinion there, but held back any snide remark that might have found its way over his lips. He simply did not feel up to it right now, not after falling through two ceilings, nearly getting stabbed to death by the rest of skeletons and now nearly breaking every bone in his body. His eyes wandered upwards again, tracing over the crack they had fallen through. The stone there was easily over a metre thick, and it seemed nearly impossible that it would simply cave in, but then his thoughts turned back to the strange creature he had believed to see as he had fallen.  
  
Within a second he had staggered to his feet and, eyes nervously darting around, walked over to his fellow Slytherin, who had walked farther down the hall and was now trying to remove the webs from part of the wall, succeeding to get the fine threads all over himself, but not caring as he tore more of the ghostlike veil away. Behind him he could hear Potter getting to his feet and following him, their steps echoing loudly in the hall.  
  
Grey eyes widened slightly as he saw what had caught the attention of the other boy and set to work to help him clean it of the last traces of the spidery webs. A door, made of wood so old it nearly looked like the stones surrounding them, every inch covered with complicated carvings, lines building every imaginable design on the dark surface and woven in between words. Just looking at it once he managed to discern four different languages, overlapping each other and making it nearly impossible to read them.  
  
"This is Latin."  
  
Potters breath stirred the hair at his neck. A shiver ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the warm moist ghost of air, but it made him just as uncomfortable. He shifted away, hiding his discomfort behind a glare, as he turned his head to look at the youth that had intruded in his private space. The glare though held only a moment, before he raised a delicate eyebrow and a snicker escaped his lips.  
  
"You look like shit, Potter."  
  
Which was probably an understatement.  
  
Once black hair was dusted a dirty grey and stuck out in every possible, and in some cases it seemed impossible, angles, pieces of debris and fine bone splinters still entangled in it. His glasses sat lopsided on his nose, and one of them was splintered, a fine web of cracks running through it. That he saw something at all was a wonder, with all the dust encrusted to them. The only gash of colour in the otherwise pale face were his scar, a few cuts on which the blood had already clotted and a huge vivid purple bump blossoming on the middle of his forehead.  
  
All in all he looked like someone had wiped the ground of some old basement with him.  
  
For a moment the green eyed youth looked at him as if he had gone crazy, before a lopsided smile curled the corner of his lips upwards.  
  
"And you look like Snape cleaned the dungeons with you."  
  
Their laughter seemed nervous, forced as their comments weren't really funny, but it eased their tension a little. A moment they simple stared at each other silently, before Draco diverted his eyes and looked at the carvings again.  
  
"What do they say, Deorn?"  
  
The addressed snorted slightly, gazing up at the blond with disapproving look.  
  
"Firstly, how often do I have to tell you to call me Aether. I always feel like an old fart when you call me Deorn. Secondly, if you had translated it yourself instead of exchanging pleasantries, you would know that this is a warning to not open this door. I guess the other languages mean the same, but I don't know all of them. There are Celtic runes, and some writing I have never seen before. I couldn't decipher what is behind it though, but taking the pentagram in accord, I dare to guess they were quite afraid of whatever was behind it... Help me."  
  
With that he leaned his body against the door and pushed. A trickle of dust fell down from the cracks in the door and it slightly moved inwards.  
  
"Are you crazy, you are going to open that? The warning must be there for a reason!"  
  
He couldn't tell why, but the opening of the door filled him with dread. He knew this wasn't a good idea, that they should leave it as it was and forget they had ever seen it. They should simply turn back to he centre of the room, sit down and wait for someone to find them. They were bound to stumble upon them sooner or later, and it wasn't like they would leave him behind, or their Golden Boy Potter. The wisest thing to do would be to stay here and not move around, and especially not open strange doors that had written warnings on it in every possible language!  
  
Potter brushed past him, taking position next to the other boy, green eyes looked up at him, and in them sparkled amusement.  
  
"What is it Malfoy? Afraid of a bit of dust and the dark?"  
  
For a moment anger took over, forced down the fear and a snarl twisted his lips, fucking Gryffindor showing off again how brave he was.  
  
"No Potter. I just don't have a fucking death wish. Normally people tend to have a reason to put warnings on something, especially if they have been keeping it up for at least a thousand years or so. And we should stay here anyway. They are going to search for us."  
  
"All well and true. But until they find us days could pass, and I am not very keen of sitting around here, in the dark and hoping that they might stumble upon us. I would rather try my luck with this door. Maybe we can discover a way outside or at least reach a part of the catacombs that isn't basalt and apparate outside. If you want you can stay here, but I am definitely going."  
  
A scowl flickered over his features. The boy was right, even if he did not like it. They could sit days in here without being discovered, if ever, and the possibility that somewhere the magic blocking stone would give way to normal one was high.  
  
The door finally opened completely and the dim light fell into the corridor behind it.  
  
No demons jumped at them, no trap was released and no instant death spell killed them.  
  
Just a corridor, full of dust.  
  
It seemed to be made by the same people that had built the hall they were in, just that the walls were full of strange and beautiful reliefes that caught Aethers attention. An awed whisper came over the youth's lips as he stepped forward, closer to the walls and in the same moment the ground caved in underneath him and with a scream he fell for the third time in only a few minutes down into the darkness. Instinctive Draco tried to jump backwards into the safety of the hall, just a few feet in front of him Potter all but threw himself backwards.  
  
But both of their reactions came a second to late and both fell screaming into the blackness.  
  
This time he wasn't so lucky and he hit his head hard on stone, stars and bright colours danced behind his closed eyelids and a painful moan came over his lips. Once again he fought the pull that threatened to drown his mind and a moment he simply drew a few painful breaths, before opening his eyes.  
  
And staring directly into the face of the devil.  
  
No one could probably hold it against him that his consciousness finally gave way to merciful blackness. 


End file.
